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A  GREAT  INIQUITY 

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Leo  Tolstoy 


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Translated  l^y 
V.  TcHERTKOFF  rtW  L    F.    MaVO 


NEW    \'  O  R  K 

B.  W.  HUKHSCH,  Inc. 

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A  GREAT  INIQUITY 

By  LEO  TOLSTOY 


This  history-making  article  by  Leo  Tolstoy,  dated  at  Yasnaya 
Poliana,  Russia,  July,  1905,  first  appeared  in  the  London  Times 
of  August  1,  1905.  Brief  summaries  cabled  from  London  were 
at  that  time  published  in  the  American  newspapers.  We  give 
the  article  in  full  and  verbatim  as  it  appeared  in  the  Times, 
for  which  it  was  translated  from  the  Russian  by  V.  Tchertkoff, 
editor  of  the  Free  Age  Press,  Christchurch,  Hants,  England, 
and  L  F.  M.     It  is  expressly  declared  to  be  free  of  copyright. 


Russia  is  living  through  an  important  time  destined  to 
have  enormous  results. 

The  proximity  and  inevitableness  of  the  approaching 
change  is,  as  indeed  is  always  the  case,  especially  keenly 
felt  by  those  classes  of  society  v/ho,  by  their  position,  are 
free  from  the  necessity  of  physical  labor  absorbing  all 
their  time  and  power,  and  therefore  have  the  possibility 
of  occupying  themselves  with  political  questions.  These 
men — the  nobles,  merchants,  Government  officials,  doc- 
tors, engineers,  professors,  teachers,  artists,  students,  ad- 
vocates, chiefly  townspeople,  the  so-called  "intellectuals" 
— are  now  in  Russia  directing  the  movement  which  is 
taking  place,  and  they  devote  all  their  powers  to  the  alter- 
ation of  the  existing  political  order,  and  to  replacing  it 
by  another  regarded  by  this  or  that  party  as  the  most  ex- 


Mi>B()5'7ii 


4  A  Great  Iniquity 

pedient  and  likely  to  insure  the  liberty  and  welfare  of  the 
Russian  people.  These  men,  continually  suffering  from 
every  kind  of  restriction  and  coercion  on  the  part  of  the 
Government,  from  arbitrary  exile,  incarcerations,  pro- 
hibition of  meetings,  prohibition  of  books,  newspapers, 
strikes,  unions — from  the  limitation  of  the  rights  of  va- 
rious nationalities,  and  at  the  same  time  living  a  life  com- 
pletely estranged  from  the  majority  of  the  Russian 
agricultural  people,  nsfturally  see  in  these  restrictions  the 
chief  evil,  and  in  the  liberation  from  it  the  chief  welfare, 
of  the  Russian  people. 

Thus  think  the  Liberals.  So,  also,  think  the  Social 
Democrats,  who  hope,  through  popular  representation,  by 
the  aid  of  State  power,  to  realize  a  new  social  order  in 
accordance  with  their  theory.  So  also  think  the  revolu- 
tionaries, hoping  by  substituting  a  new  Government  for 
the  existing  one,  to  establish  laws  insuring  the  greatest 
freedom  and  welfare  of  the  whole  people. 

And  yet  one  need  only  for  a  time  free  oneself  from  the 
idea  which  has  taken  root  amongst  our  intellectuals,  that 
the  work  now  before  Russia  is  the  introduction  into  our 
country  of  those  same  forms  of  political  life  which  have 
been  introduced  into  Europe  and  America,  and  are  sup- 
posed to  insure  the  liberty  and  welfare  of  all  the  citizens 
— and  to  simply  think  of  what  is  morally  wrong  in  our 
life  in  order  to  see  quite  clearly  that  the  chief  evil  from 
which  the  whole  of  the  Russian  people  are  unceasingly 
and  cruelly  suffering — an  evil  of  which  they  are  keenly 
conscious  and  to  which  they  are  continually  pointing — 
cannot  be  removed  by  any  political  reforms,  just  as  it  is 
not  up  to  the  present  time  removed  by  any  of  the  political 
reforms  of  Europe  and  America.     This  evil — the  funda- 


A  Great  Iniquity  5 

mental  evil  from  which  the  Russian  people,  as  well  as. 
(he  peoples  of  Europe  and  America,  are  suffering — is  the 
fact  that  the  majority  of  tiie  people  are  deprived  of  the 
indisputable  natural  right  of  every  man  to  use  a  portion 
of  tlie  land  on  which  he  was  born.  It  is  sufficient  to  un- 
derstand all  the  criminality,  the  sinfulness  of  the  situation 
in  this  respect,  in  order  to  understand  that  until  this 
atrocity,  continually  being  committed  by  the  owners  of  the 
land,  shall  cease,  no  political  reforms  will  give  freedom 
and  welfare  to  the  people,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  only 
the  emancipation  of  the  majority  of  the  people  from  that 
land-slavery  in  which  they  are  now  held  can  render 
political  reforms,  not  a  plaything  and  a  tool  for  personal 
aims  in  the  hands  of  politicians,  but  the  real  expression 
of  the  will  of  the  people. 

It  is  this  thought  which  I  wish  to  communicate  in  this 
article  to  those  who,  at  the  present  important  moment 
for  Russia,  desire  to  serve  not  their  personal  aims,  but 
the  true  welfare  of  the  Russian  people. 

I. 

The  other  day  I  was  walking  along  the  high  road  to 
Tula.  It  was  on  the  Saturday  of  Holy  Week;  the  people 
were  driving  to  market  in  lines  of  carts,  with  calves,  hens, 
horses,  cows  (some  of  the  cows  were  being  conveyed  in 
the  carts,  so  starved  were  they).  A  wrinkled  old  woman 
was  leading  a  lean,  sickly  cow.  I  knew  the  old  woman, 
and  asked  her  why  she  was  leading  the  cow. 

"She's  without  milk,"  said  the  woman.  "I  ought  to 
sell  her  and  buy  one  with  milk.  Likely  I'll  have  to  add 
ten  roubles,  but  I  have  only  five.     Where  shall  I  take  it? 


6  A  Great  Iniquity 

During  the  winter  we  have  had  to  spend  18  roubles  on 
flour,  and  we've  only  got  one  bread-winner.  I  live  alone 
with  my  daughter-in-law  and  four  grandchildren ;  my  son 
is  house-porter  in  town." 

"Why  doesn't  your  son  live  at  home?"     I  asked. 

"He's  nothing  to  work  on.  What's  our  land?  Just 
enough  for  Kvas."  ^ 

A  peasant  went  tramping  along,  thin  and  pale,  his 
trousers  bespattered  with  mine  clay. 

"What  business  in  town  ?"     I  asked. 

"To  buy  a  horse;  it's  time  to  plow,  and  I  haven't  got 
one.     But  they  say  horses  are  dear." 

"What  price  do  you  want  to  give?" 

"Well,  according  to  what  I  have." 

"How  much  have  you?" 

"I've  scraped  together  fifteen  roubles.^  But  what  can 
you  buy  at  the  present  time  for  fifteen  roubles?" 

"A  knacker's  beast,"  put  in  another  peasant.  "In 
whose  mine  do  you  work?"  he  asked,  glancing  at  his 
trousers  stretched  at  the  knee  and  colored  with  red  clay. 

"In  Komaroff's,  Ivan  Komaroff's." 

"Why  have  you  made  so  little?" 

"Oh,  I  was  working  for  half-profit." 

"How  much  did  you  earn?"     I  asked. 

"Two  roubles  a  week,  or  even  less.  What  can  one  do  ? 
Bread  didn't  last  till  Christmas.     We  can't  buy  enough." 

A  little  further,  a  young  peasant  was  leading  a  sleek, 
well-fed  horse  to  sell. 

"Nice  horse,"  said  I. 


1  Kvas,  a  common  Russian  beverage,  prepared  from  black  rye 
bread.     (Trans.) 

2  A  rouble  is  about  two  shillings.     (Trans.) 


A  Great  Iniquity  7 

"Couldn't  be  better,"  said  he,  thinking  me  a  buyer. 
"Good  for  ploughing  and  driving." 

"Then  why  do  you  sell  it?" 

"I  can't  use  it.  I've  only  two  allotments.  I  can  man- 
age them  with  one  horse.  I've  kept  them  both  over  the 
winter,  and  I'm  sorry  enough  for  it.  The  cattle  have 
eaten  everything  up,  and  we  want  money  to  pay  the 
rent." 

"From  whom  do  you  rent?" 

"From  Maria  Ivanovna ;  thanks  be  to  her  she  let  us 
have  it.     Otherwise  it  would  have  been  the  end  of  us." 

"What  are  the  terms?" 

"She  fleeces  us  of  fourteen  roubles.  But  where  else 
can  we  go?     So  we  take  it." 

A  woman  passed  driving  along  with  a  bo}'  wearing  a 
little  cap.  She  knew  me,  clambered  out,  and  offered  me 
her  boy  for  service.  The  boy  is  quite  a  tiny  fellow  with 
quick,  intelligent  eyes. 

"He  looks  small,  but  he  can  do  everything,"  she  says. 

"But  why  do  you  hire  out  such  a  little  one?" 

"Well,  sir,  at  least  it'll  be  one  mouth  ler^s  to  feed.  I 
have  four  besides  myself,  and  only  one  allotment.  God 
knows,  we've  nothing  to  eat.  They  ask  for  bread  and 
I've  none  to  give  them." 

With  whomsoever  one  talks,  all  complain  of  their  want 
and  all  similarly  from  one  side  or  another  come  back  to 
the  sole  reason.  There  is  insufficient  bread,  and  bread 
is  insufficient  because  there  is  no  land. 

These  may  be  mere  casual  meetings  on  the  road  ;  but 
cross  all  Russia,  all  its  peasant  world,  and  one  may  ob- 
serve all  the  dreadful  calamities  and  sufferings  which 
proceed    from   the    obvious    cause   that    the   agricultural 


8  A  Great  Iniquity 

masses  are  deprived  of  land.  Half  the  Russian  peasantry 
live  so  that  for  them  the  question  is  not  how  to  improve 
their  position,  but  only  how  not  to  die  of  hunger,  they 
and  their  families,  and  this  only  because  they  have  no 
land. 

Traverse  all  Russia  and  ask  all  the  working  people  why 
their  life  is  hard,  what  they  want;  and  all  of  them  with 
one  voice  will  say  one  and  the  same  thing,  that  which  they 
unceasingly  desire  and  expect,  and  for  which  they  un- 
ceasingly hope,  of  which  they  unceasingly  think. 

And  they  cannot  help  thinking  and  feeling  this,  for, 
apart  from  the  chief  thing,  the  insufficiency  of  land  for 
the  maintenance  of  most  of  them,  they  cannot  but  feel 
themselves  the  slaves  of  the  landed  gentry,  and  merchants, 
and  landowners  whose  estates  have  surrounded  their 
small  insufficient  allotments ;  and  they  cannot  but  think 
and  feel  this,  for  every  minute,  for  a  bag  of  grass,  for  a 
handful  of  fuel,  without  which  they  cannot  live,  for  a 
horse  gone  astray  from  their  land  on  to  the  landlord's, 
they  perpetually  suffer  fines,  blows,  humiliation. 

Once,  as  I  was  going  along  the  road,  I  entered  into  con- 
versation with  a  blind  peasant  beggar.  Recognizing  in 
me  from  my  conversation  a  literate  man  who  read  the 
papers,  but  not  taking  me  for  a  gentleman,  he  suddenly 
stopped  and  gravely  asked:  "Well,  and  is  there  any 
rumor  ?" 

I  asked:     "About  what?" 
"Why,  about  the  gentry's  land." 

I  said  I  had  heard  nothing.  The  blind  man  shook  his 
head  and  didn't  ask  me  anything  more. 

"Well,  what  do  they  say  about  the  land?"     I  asked 


A  Great  Iniquity  9 

a  short  time  ago  a  former  pupil  of  mine,  a  rich,  steady, 
and  intelligent  literate  peasant. 

"It  is  true  the  people  prattle." 

"And  you  yourself,  what  do  you  think?" 

"Well,;k's  probably  come  over  to  us,"  he  said. 

Of  all  events  which  are  taking  place,  this  alone  is  im- 
portant and  interesting  to  the  whole  people.  And  they 
believe,  and  cannot  but  believe,  that  it  will  "come  over." 

They  cannot  but  believe  this,  because  it  is  clear  to  them 
that  a  multiplying  people  living  by  agriculture  cannot  con- 
tinue to  exist  when  only  a  small  portion  of  the  land  is 
left  them  from  which  they  must  feed  themselves  and  all 
the  parasites  who  have  fastened  on  to  them  and  are 
crawling  about  them. 

II. 

"What  is  man?"  says  Henry  George  in  one  of  his 
speeches. 

In  the  first  place,  he  is  an  animal,  a  land  animal  who  cannot 
live  without  land.  All  that  man  produces  comes  from  the  land ; 
all  productive  labor,  in  the  final  analysis,  consists  in  working  up 
land,  or  materials  drawn  from  land,  into  such  forms  as  fit  them 
for  the  satisfaction  of  human  wants  and  desires.  Why,  man's 
very  body  is  drawn  from  the  land.  Children  of  the  soil,  we 
come  from  the  land,  and  to  the  land  we  must  return.  Take 
away  from  man  all  that  belongs  to  the  land,  and  what  have 
you  but  a  disembodied  spirit?  Therefore  he  who  holds  the  land 
on  which  and  from  which  another  man  must  live  is  that  man's 
master;  and  the  man  is  his  slave.  The  man  who  holds  the 
land  on  which  I  must  live  can  command  me  to  life  or  to  death 
just  as  absolutely  as  though  I  were  his  chattel.  Talk  about 
abolishing    slavery — we    have    not    abolished    slavery;    we    have 


10  A  Great  Iniquity 

only  abolished  one  rude  form  of  it,  chattel  slavery.  There  is 
a  deeper  and  more  insidious  form,  a  more  cursed  forrti  yet  be- 
fore us  to  abolish,  in  this  industrial  slavery  that  makes  a  man 
a  virtual  slave,  while  taunting  him  and  mocking  him  in  the 
name  of  freedom. ^ 

Did  you  ever  think  [says  Henry  George  in  another  part  of 
the  same  speech],  of  the  utter  absurdity  and  strangeness  of 
the  fact  that  all  over  the  civilized  world  the  working  classes 
are  the  poor  classes?  Think  for  a  moment  how  it  would  strike 
a  rational  being  who  had  never  been  on  the  earth  before,  if 
such  an  intelligence  could  come  down,  and  you  were  to  ex- 
plain to  him  how  we  live  on  earth,  how  houses  and  food  and 
clothing  and  all  the  many  things  we  need  were  all  produced  by 
work,  would  he  not  think  that  the  working  people  would  be 
the  people  who  lived  in  the  finest  houses  and  had  most  of 
everything  that  work  produces?  Yet,  whether  you  took  him  to 
London  or  Paris  or  New  York,  or  even  to  Burlington,  he  would 
find  that  those  called  the  working  people  were  the  people  who 
lived  in  the  poorest  houses.* 

The  same  thing,  I  would  add,  takes  place  in  a  yet 
greater  degree  in  the  country.  Idle  people  live  in  luxur- 
ious palaces,  in  spacious  and  fine  abodes.  The  workers 
Hve  in  dark  and  dirty  hovels. 

All  this  is  strange — jpst  think  of  it.  We  naturally  despise 
poverty,  and  it  is  reasonable  that  we  should.  .  .  .  Nature 
gives  to  labor,  and  to  labor  alone;  there  must  be  human  work 
before  any  article  of  wealth  can  be  produced;  and  in  the  natural 
state  of  things  the  man  who  toiled  honestly  and  well  would  be 
the  rich  man,  and  he  who  did  not  work  would  be  poor.  We 
have  so  reversed  the  order  of  nature  that  we  are  accustomed 
to  think  of  the  working  man  as  a  poor  man.  .  .  .  The  pri- 
mary cause  of  this  is  that  we  compel  those  who  work  to  pay 
others  for  permission  to  do  so.     You  may  buy  a  coat,  a  horse. 


3  The  Works  of  Henry  George,  Vol.  IX.,  p.  199. 
*  Ibid.,  Vol.  IX.,  p.  202. 


A  Great  Iniquity  11 

1  house;  there  you  are  paying  the  seller  tor  labor  exerted,  for 
something  that  he  has  produced,  or  that  he  has  got  from  the  man 
who  did  produce  it;  but  when  you  pay  a  man  for  land,  what  are 
you  paying  him  for?  You  are  paying  for  something  that  no 
man  has  produced;  you  pay  him  for  something  that  was  here 
Ijefore  man  was,  or  for  a  value  that  was  created,  not  by  him 
individually,  but  by  the  community  of  which  you  are  a  part.^ 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  one  who  has  seized  the 
land  and  possesses  it  is  rich,  whereas  he  who  cultivates 
it  or  works  on  its  products  is  poor. 

We  talk  about  over-production.  How  can  there  be  such  a 
thing  as  over-production  while  people  want?  All  these  things 
that  are  said  to  be  over-produced  are  desired  by  many  people. 
Why  do  they  not  get  them?  They  do  not  get  them  because 
they  have  not  the  means  to  buy  them;  not  that  tliey  do  not  want 
them.  Why  have  not  they  the  means  to  buy  them?  They  earn 
too  little.  When  the  great  mass  of  men  have  to  work  for  an 
average  of  $1.40  a  day,  it  is  no  wonder  that  great  quantities  of 
goods  cannot  be  sold. 

Now,  why  is  it  that  men  have  to  work  for  such  low  wages? 
Because  if  they  were  to  demand  higher  wages  there  are  plenty 
of  unemployed  men  ready  to  step  into  their  places.  It  is  this 
mass  of  unemployed  men  who  compel  that  fierce  competition 
that  drives  wages  dfjwn  to  the  point  of  bare  subsistence.  Why 
is  it  that  there  are  men  who  cannot  get  employment?  Did  you 
ever  think  what  a  strange  thing  it  is  that  men  cannot  find  em- 
ployment? Adam  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  employment, 
ntithcr  had  Ivoliinson  Crusoe ;  the  finding  of  employment  was 
the  last  thing  that  troubled  them. 

If  men  cannot  find  an  employer,  why  cannot  they  employ 
themselves?  Simply  because  they  are  shut  out  from  the  ele- 
ment on  which  human  labor  can  alone  be  exerted.  Men  are 
compelled  to  compete  with  each  other  for  the  wages  of  an  em- 
ployer, because  they  have  been  robbed  of  the  natural  opportu- 


» Ibid..  Vol.  IX..  pp.  202-203. 


12  A  Great  Iniquity 

nities  of  employing  themselves;  because  they  cannot  find  a  piece 
of  God's  world  on  which  to  work  without  paying  some  other 
human  creature  for  the  privilege.^ 

Men  pray  to  the  Almighty  to  relieve  poverty.  But  poverty 
comes  not  from  God's  laws — it  is  blasphemy  of  the  worst  kind 
to  say  that;  it  comes  from  man's  injustice  to  his  fellows. 
Supposing  the  Almighty  were  to  hear  the  prayer,  how  could  He 
carry  out  the  request  so  long  as  His  laws  are  what  they  are? 
Consider,  the  Almighty  gives  us  nothing  of  the  things  that 
constitute  wealth;  He  merely  gives  us  the  raw  material,  which 
must  be  utilized  by  men  to  produce  wealth.  Does  He  not  give 
us  enough  of  that  nowi  How  could  He  relieve  poverty  even 
if  He  were  to  give  us  more?  Supposing  in  answer  to  these 
prayers  He  were  to  increase  the  power  of  the  sun,  or  the  virtue 
of  the  soil?  Supposing  he  were  to  make  plants  more  prolific, 
or  animals  to  produce  after  their  kind  more  abundantly?  Who 
would  get  the  benefit  of  it?  Take  a  country  where  land  is  com- 
pletely monopolized,  as  it  is  in  most  of  the  civilized  countries, 
who  would  get  the  benefit  of  it?  Simply  the  landowners.  And 
even  if  God  in  answer  to  prayer  were  to  send  down  out  of  the 
heavens  those  things  that  men  require,  who  would  get  the 
benefit? 

In  the  Old  Testament  we  are  told  that  when  the  Israelites 
journeyed  through  the  desert  they  were  hungered,  and  that  God 
sent  manna  down  out  of  the  heavens.  There  was  enough  for 
all  of  them,  and  they  all  took  it  and  were  relieved.  But  sup- 
posing that  the  desert  had  been  held  as  private  property,  as 
the  soil  of  Great  Britain  is  held,  as  the  soil  even  of  our  new 
States  is  being  held ;  suppose  that  one  of  the  Israelites  had  a 
square  mile,  and  another  one  had  20  square  miles,  and  another 
one  had  100  square  miles,  and  the  greater  majority  of  the  Israel- 
ites did  not  have  enough  to  set  the  soles  of  their  feet  upon 
which  they  could  call  their  own — what  v/ould  become  of  the 
manna?  What  good  would  it  have  done  to  the  majority?  Not 
a  whit.  Though  God  had  sent  down  manna  enough  for  all,  that 
manna  would  have  been  the  property  of  the  landholders,  they 
would  have  employed  some  of  the  others  perhaps  to  gather  it 


« Ibid.,  Vol.  IX.,  p.  204. 


A   Great  Iniquity  13 

up  into  heaps  for  them,  and  would  have  sold  it  to  their  hungry 
brethren.  Consider  it;  this  purchase  and  sale  of  manna  rright 
have  gone  on  until  the  majority  of  Israelites  had  given  all  they 
had,  even  to  the  clothes  off  their  backs.  What  then?  Then 
they  would  not  have  had  anything  to  buy  manna  with,  and  the 
consequences  would  have  been  that  while  they  went  hungry  the 
manna  would  have  lain  in  great  heaps,  and  the  landowners 
would  have  been  complaining  of  the  over-production  of  manna. 
There  would  have  been  a  great  harvest  of  manna  and  hungry 
people,  just  precisely  the  phenomenon  that  we  see  to-day.'^ 

I  do  not  n:ear  to  say  that  even  after  you  had  set  right  this 
fundamental  injustice  there  would  not  be  many  things  to  do;  but 
this  I  do  mean  to  say,  that  our  treatment  of  land  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  all  social  questions.  This  I  do  mean  to  say,  that,  do 
what  you  please,  reform  as  you  may,  you  never  can  get  rid  of 
widespread  poverty  so  long  as  the  element  on  which  and  from 
which  all  men  must  live  is  made  the  private  property  of  some 
men.  It  is  utterly  impossible.  Reform  government ;  get  taxes 
down  to  the  minimum;  build  railroads;  institute  co-operative 
stores ;  divide  profits,  if  you  choose,  between  employers  and  em- 
ployed— and  what  will  be  the  result?  The  result  will  be  that 
the  land  will  increase  in  value — that  will  be  the  result — that  and 
nothing  else.  Experience  shows  this.  Do  not  all  improvements 
simply  increase  the  value  of  land — the  price  that  seme  must 
pay  others  for  the  privilege  of  living?  ^ 

The  same.  I  shall  add,  do  we  unceasingly  see  in  Russia. 
All  landowners  complain  of  the  unprofitableness  and  ex- 
pense of  their  estates,  whilst  the  price  of  the  land  is  con- 
tinually rising.  It  cannot  but  rise,  since  the  population 
is  increasing  and  land  is  a  question  of  life  and  death  for 
this  popul?*ion. 

And  therefore  the  people  surrender  everything  they 
can,  not  only  their  labor,  but  even  their  lives,  for  the  land 
nhich  is  being  withheld  from  them. 

Mhid  .  Vol    IX  ,  pp.  205-206. 
'  Ibid.,  Vol.  IX.,  pp.  204-205. 


14  A   Great  Iniquity 

III. 

There  used  to  be  cannibalism  and  human  sacrifices ; 
there  used  to  be  religious  prostitution  and  the  murder  of 
weak  children  and  of  girls;  there  used  to  be  bloody  re- 
venge and  the  slaughter  of  whole  populations,  judicial 
tortures,  quarterings,  burnings  at  the  stake,  the  lash ;  and 
there  have  been,  within  our  memory,  spitzruthens  ®  and 
slavery,  which  have  also  disappeared.  But  if  we  have 
outlived  these  dreadful  customs  and  institutions,  this  does 
not  prove  that  there  do  not  exist  institutions  and  customs 
amongst  us  which  have  become  as  abhorrent  to  enlight- 
ened reason  and  conscience  as  those  which  have  in  their 
time  been  abolished  and  have  become  for  us  only  a  dread- 
ful remembrance.  The  way  of  human  perfecting  is  end- 
less, and  at  every  moment  of  historical  life  there  are 
superstitions,  deceits,  pernicious  and  evil  institutions  al- 
ready outlived  by  men  and  belonging  to  the  past ;  there 
are  others  which  appear  to  us  in  the  far  mists  of  the 
future ;  and  there  are  some  which  we  are  now  living 
through  and  whose  over-living  forms  the  object  of  our 
life.  Such  in  our  time  is  capital  punishment  and  all  pun- 
ishment in  general.  Such  is  prostitution,  such  is  flesh 
eating,  such  is  the  work  of  militarism,  war,  and  such  is 
the  nearest  and  most  obvious  evil,  private  property  in 
land. 

But  as  people  never  suddenly  freed  themselves  from  all 
the  injustices  which  had  become  customary,  nor  even  did 
so  immediately  after  the  more  sensitive  individuals  had 


9  Spitzruthens — sticks  used  by  soldiers  when  one  of  them  is 
condemned  to  run  the  gauntlet,  a  punishment  which  the  victim 
uiil  not  often  survive.     (Trans.) 


A  Great  Iniquity  15 

recognized  their  iniquity,  but  advanced  only  by  leaps, 
halts,  resuming?,  and  again  new  leaps  towards  freedom, 
similar  to  the  struggles  of  childbirth,  so  has  it  been  of  late 
with  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  so  is  it  now  with  private 
property  in  land. 

The  evil  and  injustice  of  private  property  in  land  have 
been  pointed  out  a  thousand  years  ago  by  the  prophets 
and  sages  of  old.  Later  progressive  thinkers  of  Europe 
have  been  oftener  and  oftener  pointing  it  out.  With 
special  clearness  did  the  workers  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion do  so.  In  latter  days,  owing  to  the  increase  of  the 
population  and  the  seizing  by  the  rich  of  a  great  quantity 
of  previously  free  land,  also  owing  to  general  enlighten- 
ment and  the  spread  of  humanitarianism,  this  injustice 
has  become  so  obvious  that  not  only  the  progressive,  but 
even  the  most  average,  people  cannot  help  seeing  and  feel- 
ing it.  But  men,  especially  those  who  profit  by  the  ad- 
vantages of  landed  property — the  owners  themselves,  as 
well  as  those  whose  interests  are  connected  with  this  insti- 
tution— are  so  accustomed  to  this  order  of  things,  they 
have  for  so  long  profited  by  it,  have  so  much  depended 
upon  it,  that  often  they  themselves  do  not  see  its  injustice, 
and  they  use  all  possible  means  to  conceal  from  them- 
selves and  others  the  truth  which  is  disclosing  itself  more 
and  more  clearly,  and  to  crush,  extinguish,  and  distort  it, 
or,  if  these  do  not  succeed,  to  hush  it  up. 

Characteristically  was  this  the  fate  of  the  activity  of 
the  remarkable  man  who  appeared  towards  the  end  of 
last  century — Henry  George — who  devoted  his  great 
mental  i)owcrs  to  the  elucidation  of  the  injustice  and 
cruelty  of  landed  jjroperty  and  to  the  indication  of  the 
means  of  correcting  this  evil  by  the  help  of  the  state  of 


16  A  Great  Iniquity 

organization  now  existing  amongst  all  nations.  He  did 
this  in  his  books,  articles  and  speeches  with  such  extraor- 
dinary power  and  lucidity  that  no  man  without  precon- 
ceived ideas  could,  after  reading  his  books,  fail  to  agree 
with  his  arguments,  and  to  see  that  no  reforms  can  im- 
prove the  condition  of  the  people  until  this  fundamental 
injustice  be  destroyed,  and  that  the  means  he  proposes 
for  its  abolition  are  rational,  just  and  expedient. 

But  what  has  happened?  Notwithstanding  that  at  the 
time  of  their  appearance  the  English  writings  of  Henry 
George  spread  very  quickly  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  world, 
and  did  not  fail  to  be  appreciated  to  the  full  extent  of  their 
great  merit,  it  very  soon  appeared  that  in  England,  and 
even  in  Ireland,  where  the  crying  injustice  of  private 
landed  property  is  particularly  manifest,  the  majority  of 
the  most  influential  educated  people,  notwithstanding  the 
conclusiveness  of  Henry  George's  arguments  and  the 
practicability  of  the  remedy  he  proposes,  opposed  his 
teaching.  Radical  agitators  like  Parnell,  who  at  first  sym- 
pathized with  George's  scheme,  very  soon  shrank  from  it, 
regarding  political  reforms  as  more  important.  In  Eng- 
land almost  all  the  aristocrats  were  against  it,  also, 
amongst  others,  the  famous  Toynbee,  Gladstone,  and 
Herbert  Spencer — that  Spencer  who  in  his  "Statics"  at 
first  most  categorically  asserted  the  injustice  of  landed 
property,  and  then,  renouncing  this  view  of  his,  bought 
up  the  old  editions  of  his  writings  in  order  to  eliminate 
from  them  all  that  he  had  said  concerning  the  injustice 
of  landed  property. 

In  Oxford  during  George's  lectures  the  students  organ- 
ized hostile  manifestations  while  the  Roman  Catholic 
party  regarded  George's  teaching  as  positively  sinful  and 


A  Great  Iniquity  17 

immoral,  dangerous,  and  contrary  to  Christ's  teaching. 
Also  the  orthodox  science  of  political  economy  revolted 
against  George's  teaching.  Learned  professors  from  the 
height  of  their  superiority  refuted  his  teaching  without 
understanding  it,  chiefly  because  it  did  not  recognize  the 
fundamental  principles  of  their  imaginary  science.  The 
Socialists  were  also  inimical,  recognizing  as  the  most  im- 
portant problem  of  the  day  not  the  land  problem,  but  the 
complete  abolition  of  private  property. 

The  chief  weapon  against  the  teaching  of  Henry  George 
was  that  which  is  always  used  against  irrefutable  and  self- 
evident  truths.  This  method,  which  is  still  being  applied 
in  relation  to  George,  was  that  of  hushing  up.  This  hush- 
ing up  was  effected  so  successfully  that  a  member  of  the 
English  Parliament,  Labouchere,  could  publicly  say,  with- 
out meeting  any  refutation,  that  "he  was  not  such  a 
visionary  as  Henry  George.  He  did  not  propose  to  take 
the  land  from  the  landlords  and  rent  it  out  again.  What 
he  was  in  favor  of  was  putting  a  tax  on  land  values."  " 
That  is,  whilst  attributing  to  George  what  he  could  not 
possibly  have  said,  Labouchere,  by  way  of  correcting  these 
imaginary  fantasies,  suggested  that  which  Henry  George 
did  indeed  say. 

Thanks  to.  tlie  collective  efforts  of  all  those  interested 
in  defending  the  institution  of  landed  property,  the  teach- 
ing of  George,  irresistibly  convincing  in  its  simplicity  and 
clearness,  remains  almost  unknown,  and  of  late  years 
attracts  less  and  less  attention. 

Here  and  there  in  Scotland,  Portugal  or  New  Zealand 
lie  is  recalled  to  mind,  and  amongst  hundreds  of  scientists 


>oThe  Works  of   Henry  GcorKC  Vol.  X..  p.  516. 


18  A  Great  Iniquity 

there  appears  one  who  knows  and  defends  his  teachings. 
But  in  England  and  the  United  States  the  number  of  his 
adherents  dwindles  smaller  and  smaller;  in  France  his 
teaching  is  almost  unknown ;  in  Germany  it  is  preached  in 
a  very  small  circle,  and  is  everywhere  stifled  by  the  noisy 
teaching  of  Socialism. 

IV. 

People  do  not  argue  with  the  teaching  of  George,  they 
simply  do  not  know  it.  And  it  is  impossible  to  do  other- 
wise with  his  teaching,  for  he  who  becomes  acquainted 
with  it  cannot  but  agree. 

If  people  refer  to  this  teaching  they  do  so  either  in 
attributing  to  it  that  which  it  does  not  say,  or  in  reassert- 
ing that  which  has  been  refuted  by  George,  or  else,  above 
all,  they  reject  it  simply  because  it  does  not  conform  with 
those  pedantic,  arbitrary,  superficial  principles  of  so-called 
political  economy  which  are  recognized  as  indisputable 
truths. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  this,  the  truth  that  land  cannot  be 
an  object  of  property  has  become  so  elucidated  by  the  very 
life  of  contemporary  mankind  that  in  order  to  continue  to 
retain  a  way  of  life  in  which  private  landed  property  is 
recognized  there  is  only  one  means — not  to  think  of  it,  to 
ignore  the  truth,  and  to  occupy  oneself  with  other  absorb- 
ing business.     So,  indeed,  do  the  men  of  our  time. 

Political  workers  of  Europe  and  America  occupy  them- 
selves for  the  welfare  of  their  nations  in  various  matters: 
tariffs,  colonies,  income  taxes,  military  and  naval  budgets, 
socfalistic  assemblies,  unions,  syndicates,  the  election  of 
presidents,  diplomatic  connections — by  anything  save  the 


A   Great  Iniquity  19 

one  thing  without  which  there  cannot  be  any  true  im- 
provement in  the  condition  of  the  people — the  reestabHsh- 
nient  of  the  infringed  right  of  all  men  to  use  the  land. 
Although  in  the  depth  of  their  souls  political  work-^rs  of 
the  Christian  world  feel — cannot  but  feel — that  all  their 
activity,  the  commercial  strife  with  which  they  are  occu- 
pied, as  well  as  the  military  strife  in  which  they  put  all 
their  energies — can  lead  to  nothing  but  a  general  exhaus- 
tion of  the  strength  of  nations;  still  they,  without  looking 
forward,  give  themselves  up  to  the  demand  of  the  minute, 
and,  as  if  with  the  one  desire  to  forget  themselves,  con- 
tinue to  turn  round  and  round  in  an  enchanted  circle  out 
of  which  there  is  no  issue. 

However  strange  this  temporary  blindness  of  the  polit- 
ical workers  of  Europe  and  America,  it  can  be  explained 
by  the  fact  that  in  Europe  and  America  people  have  al- 
ready gone  so  far  along  a  wrong  road  that  the  majority 
of  their  population  is  already  torn  from  the  land  (in 
America  it  has  never  lived  on  the  land),  but  lives  either  in 
factories  or  by  hired  agricultural  labor,  and  desires  and 
demands  only  one  thing — the  improvement  of  its  position 
as  hired  laborers.  It  is  therefore  comprehensible  that  to 
the  political  workers  of  Europe  and  America— listening 
to  the  demands  of  the  majority — it  may  seem  that  the 
chief  means  for  the  improvement  of  the  position  of  the 
people  consists  in  tariffs,  trusts  and  colonies,  but  to  the 
Russian  people  in  Russia,  where  the  agricultural  popula- 
tion composes  80  per  cent,  of  liie  whole  nation,  where  all 
this  people  request  only  one  thing— that  opjiortunity  be 
given  them  to  remain  in  this  state — it  would  seem  it 
should  be  clear  that  for  the  improvement  of  the  position 
of  the  people  souKthing  else  is  necessary. 


20  ^4   Great  hiiquit\ 

The  people  of  Europe  and  America  are  in  the  position 
of  a  man  who  has  gone  so  far  along  a  road  which  at  first 
appeared  the  right  one,  but  which  the  further  he  goes  the 
more  it  removes  him  from  his  object,  that  he  is  afraid 
of  confessing  his  mistake.  But  the  Russians  are  yet 
standing  before  the  turning  of  the  path  and  can,  accord- 
ing to  the  wise  saying,  "ask  their  way  while  yet  on  the 
road." 

And  what  are  those  Russian  people  doing  who  desire, 
or,  at  all  events,  say  they  desire,  to  organize  a  good  life 
for  the  people  ?  In  everything  they  slavishly  imitate 
whatever  is  being  done  in  Europe  and  America. 

For  the  arrangement  of  a  good  life  for  the  people  they 
are  concerned  with  the  freedom  of  the  press,  religious 
tolerance,  liberty  of  union,  tariffs,  conditional  punishment, 
the  separation  of  the  Church  from  the  State,  cooperative 
associations,  future  communalization  of  the  implements  of 
work,  and,  above  all,  v/ith  representative  government — 
that  same  representative  government  which  has  long 
existed  in  European  and  American  states,  but  whose  ex- 
istence has  not  in  the  slightest  contributed,  nor  does  now 
contribute,  not  only  to  the  solution,  but  even  to  the  raising 
of  that  one  land  problem  which  involves  all  difficulties. 
If  Russian  political  workers  do  speak  about  land  abuse, 
which  they  for  some  reason  call  the  "agrarian"  question — 
probably  thinking  that  this  silly  word  will  conceal  the  sub- 
stance of  the  matter — they  speak  of  it,  not  in  the  sense 
that  private  landed  property  is  an  evil  which  should  be 
abolished,  but  in  the  sense  that  it  is  necessary  in  some 
way  or  other,  by  various  patchings  and  palliatives,  to 
plaster  up,  hush  up,  and  pass  over  this  essential,  ancient, 
and   criiel,   this  obvious  and   crying   injustice,   which   is 


A  Great  Iniquity  21 

awaiting  its  turn  for  abolition  not  only  in  Russia,  but  in 
the  whole  world. 

In  Russia,  where  a  hundred  million  of  the  masses  un- 
ceasingly suffer  from  the  sei7,ure  of  the  land  by  private 
owners,  and  unceasingly  cry  out  about  it.  the  position  of 
those  people  who  are  vainly  searching  everywhere  but 
where  it  really  is  for  the  means  of  improving  the  condition 
of  the  people,  reminds  one  exactly  of  that  which  takes 
place  t)n  the  stage  when  all  the  spectators  see  perfectly 
well  the  man  who  has  hidden  himself,  and  the  actors 
themselves  ought  to  see  him,  but  pretend  they  do  not,  in- 
tentionally distracting  each  other's  attention  and  seeing 
everything  except  that  which  it  is  necessary  for  them  to 
see,  but  which  they  do  not  wish  to  see. 

People  have  driven  a  herd  of  cows,  on  the  milk  prod- 
ucts of  which  they  are  fed,  into  an  enclosure.  The  cows 
have  eaten  up  and  trampled  the  forage  in  the  enclosure, 
they  are  hungry,  they  have  chewed  each  other's  tails,  they 
low  and  moan,  imploring  to  be  released  from  the  enclos- 
ure and  set  free  in  the  pastures.  But  the  very  men  who 
feed  themselves  on  the  milk  of  these  cows  have  set  around 
the  enclosure  plantations  of  mint,  of  plants  for  dyeing 
purposes,  and  of  tobacco;  they  have  cultivated  flowers, 
laid  out  a  racecourse,  a  park,  and  a  lawn  tennis  ground, 
and  they  do  not  let  out  the  cows  lest  they  spoil  these  ar- 
rangements. But  the  cows  bellow,  get  thin,  and  the  men 
begin  to  be  afraid  that  the  cows  may  cease  to  yield  milk. 
and  they  invent  various  means  of  improving  the  condition 
of  these  cows.     They  erect  sheds  over  them,  they  intro- 


22  A   Great  Iniquity 

duce  wet  brushes  for  rubbing  the  cows,  they  gild  their 
horns,  alter  the  hour  of  milking,  concern  themselves  with 
the  housing  and  treating  oj  invalid  and  old  cows,  they 
invent  new  and  improved  methods  of  milking,  they  expect 
that  some  kind  of  wonderfully  nutritious  grass  they  have 
sown  in  the  enclosure  will  grow  up,  they  argue  about  these 
and  many  other  varied  matters,  but  they  do  not,  cannot — 
without  disturbing  all  they  have  arranged  arouhd  the 
enclosure — do  the  only  simple  thing  necessary  for  them- 
selves as  well  as  for  the  cows — to-wit,  the  taking  down 
of  the  fence  and  granting  the  cows  their  natural  freedom 
of  using  in  plenty  the  pastures  surrounding  them. 

Acting  thus  men  act  unreasonably,  but  there  is  an  ex- 
planation of  their  action;  they  are  sorry  for  the  fate  of 
all  they  have  arranged  around  the  enclosure.  But  what 
shall  we  call  those  people  who  have  set  nothing  around  the 
fence,  but  who,  out  of  imitation  of  those  who  do  not  set 
free  their  cows,  owing  to  what  they  had  arranged  around 
the  enclosure,  also  keep  their  cows  inside  the  fence,  and 
assert  that  they  do  so  for  the  welfare  of  the  cows  them- 
selves ? 

Precisely  thus  act  those  Russians,  both  Governmental 
and  anti-Governmental,  who  arrange  for  the  Russian  peo- 
ple, unceasingly  suffering  from  the  want  of  land,  every 
kind  of  European  institution,  forgetting  and  denying  the 
chief  thing:  that  which  alone  the  Russian  people  requires 
— the  liber?tion  of  the  land  from  private  property,  the  es- 
tablishment of  equal  rights  on  the  land  for  all  men. 

One  can  understand  how  European  parasites  living  not 
directly  by  the  labor  of  their  own  British,  French  or  Ger- 
man working  men,  but  by  the  labor  of  colonial  working 
men  who  produce  the  bread   for  which  the  others  ex- 


A  Great  Iniquity  23 

change  their  factory  produce,  may,  without  seeing  the 
labor  and  sufferings  of  those  working  men  who  feed  and 
support  them,  invent  a  future  SociaUstic  organization  for 
which  they  think  they  are  educating  mankind,  and  with 
unawakened  conscience  amuse  themselves  with  election- 
eering campaigns,  the  strife  of  parties,  Parliamentary  de- 
bates, the  establishment  and  overthrow  of  Ministers,  and 
every  other  kind  of  recreation  which  they  call  science  and 
art. 

The  true  bread-supporters  of  these  European  parasites 
are  the  laborers  they  do  not  see  in  India,  Africa,  Aus- 
tralia, and  partly  in  Russia.  But  it  is  not  so  for  us  Rus- 
sians; we  have  no  colonies  where  slaves  invisible  to  our- 
selves feed  us  for  our  manufacturing  produce.  Our 
bread-winners,  sufTering,  hungry,  are  always  before  our 
eyes,  and  we  cannot  transfer  the  burden  of  our  iniquitous 
life  to  distant  colonies,  that  slaves  invisible  to  us  should 
feed  us. 

Our  sins  are  always  before  us. 

And  behold,  instead  of  entering  into  the  needs  of  those 
who  support  us,  instead  of  hearing  their  cries  and  en- 
deavoring to  satisfy  them,  we,  instead  of  this,  under  pre- 
text of  serving  them,  also  prepare,  according  to  the  Euro- 
pean sample.  Socialistic  organizations  for  the  future,  and 
in  the  present  occupy  ourselves  with  what  amuses  and 
distracts  us,  and  appears  to  be  directed  to  the  welfare  of 
the  people  out  of  whom  we  are  squeezing  their  last 
strength  in  order  to  support  us,  their  parasites. 

For  the  welfare  of  the  people,  we  endeavor  to  abolish 
the  censorship  of  books,  arbitrary  banishments,  and  to 
organize  everywhere  schools,   common  and   agricultnral, 


24  A  Great  Iniquity 

to  increase  the  number  of  hospitals,  to  cancel  passports 
and  monopolies,  to  institute  strict  inspection  in  the  fac- 
tories, to  reward  maimed  workers,  to  mark  boundaries  be- 
tween properties,  to  contribute  through  banks  to  the 
purchase  of  land  by  peasants,  and  much  else. 

One  need  only  enter  into  the  unceasing  sufferings  of 
millions  of  the  people ;  tlie  dying  out  from  want  of  the 
aged,  women,  and  children,  and  of  the  workers  from  ex- 
cessive work  and  insufficient  food — one  need  only  enter 
into  the  servitude,  the  humiliations,  all  the  useless  expend- 
itures of  strength,  into  the  deprivations,  into  all  the  horror 
of  the  needless  calamities  of  the  Russian  rural  population 
which  all  proceed  from  insufficiency  of  land — in  order 
that  it  should  become  quite  clear  that  all  such  measures  as 
the  abolition  of  censorship,  of  arbitrary  banishment,  etc., 
which  are  being  striven  after  by  the  pseudo-defenders  of 
the  people,  even  were  they  to  be  realized,  would  form  only 
the  most  insignificant  drop  in  the  ocean  of  that  want  from 
which  the  people  are  suffering. 

But  not  only  do  those  concerned  with  the  welfare  of 
the  people,  while  inventing  alterations,  trifling,  unim- 
portant, both  in  quality  and  quantity,  leave  a  hundred 
millions  of  the  people  in  unceasing  slavery  owing  to  the 
seizure  of  the  land — more  than  this,  many  of  these  peo- 
ple, of  the  most  progressive  amongst  them,  desire  that  the 
suffering  of  this  people  should,  by  its  continual  increase, 
drive  them  to  the  necessity — after  leaving  on  their  way 
millions  of  victims,  perished  from  want  and  depravity — 
of  exchanging  their  customary  and  happy,  favorite  and 
reasonable  agricultural  life  for  that  improved  factory  life 
which  they  have  invented  for  them. 

The  Russian  people — owing  to  their  agricultural  en- 


A  Great  Iniquity  25 

vironment,  their  love  for  this  form  of  hfe,  their  Christian 
trend  of  character,  owing  to  the  circumstances  that  they, 
almost  alone  of  all  European  nations,  continue  to  be  an 
agricultural  nation  and  desire  to  remain  such — is,  as  it 
were,  providentially  placed  by  historic  conditions  for  the 
solution  of  what  is  called  the  labor  question,  in  such  a 
position  as  to  stand  in  the  front  of  the  true  progressive 
movement  of  all  mankind.  Yet  it  is  this  Russian  people 
who  is  invited  by  its  fancied  representatives  and  leaders 
to  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  dying  out  and  entangled 
European  and  American  nations,  to  become  depraved, 
and  to  relinquish  its  own  calling  as  quickly  as  possible  in 
order  to  become  like  Europeans  in  general. 

Astounding  is  the  poverty  of  thought  of  these  men, 
who  do  not  think  with  their  own  minds,  but  only  servilely 
repeat  whatever  is  given  forth  by  their  European  models ; 
but  still  more  astounding  is  the  hardness  of  their  hearts, 
their  cruelty. 

VI. 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites !  for 
ye  are  like  unto  whited  sepulchers,  which  outwardly  ap- 
pear beautiful,  but  inwardly  are  full  of  dead  men's  bones 
and  of  all  unclcaiiness.  Even  so  ye  also  outwardly  ap- 
pear righteous  unto  men,  but  inwardly  ye  are  full  of 
hypocrisy  and  iniquity."      (Matthew  xxiii.,  27,  28.) 

There  was  a  time  when  in  the  name  of  God  and  of  true 
faith  in  Him  men  were  destroyed,  tortured,  executed, 
beaten  in  scores  and  hundreds  of  thousands.  We.  from 
the  height  of  our  attainments,  now  look  down  upon  the 
men  who  did  these  things. 


26  A  Great  Iniquity 

But  we  are  wrong.  Amongst  us  there  are  many  such 
people,  the  difference  lies  only  here — that  those  men  of 
old  did  these  things  then  in  the  name  of  God,  and  of 
His  true  service,  whilst  now  those  who  commit  the  same 
evil  amongst  us  do  so  in  the  name  of  "the  people,"  "for 
the  true  service  of  the  people."  And  as  amongst  the 
former  there  were  men  insanely  self-convinced  that  they 
knew  the  truth,  and  there  were  others  hypocrites  taking 
up  their  position  under  the  pretext  of  serving  God,  and 
there  was  a  crowd  without  consideration  following  the 
more  dextrous  and  bold,  so  also  now  those  who  do  evil 
in  the  name  of  serving  the  people  consist  of  the  men  in- 
sanely self -convinced  that  they  alone  know  the  truth — 
of  hypocrites  and  of  the  crowd.  Much  evil  have  the  self- 
proclaimed  servants  of  God  done  in  their  time,  thanks  to 
the  teaching  which  they  called  Theology,  but  the  servants 
of  the  people,  thanks  to  the  teaching  which  they  call 
Science,  if  they  have  done  less  evil,  it  is  only  because 
they  have  not  yet  had  time  to  do  it,  but  already  on  their 
conscience  there  lie  rivers  of  blood  and  great  divisions 
and  exasperation  amongst  men. 

And  the  features  of  both  these  activities  are  the  same. 

First,  there  is  the  dissolute  bad  life  of  the  majority  of 
these  "servants,"  both  of  God  and  of  the  people.  (Their 
calling  themselves  servants  of  God  or  of  the  people,  ac- 
cording to  their  ideas,  frees  them  from  restricting  them- 
selves in  their  conduct.) 

The  second  feature  is  the  utter  absence  of  interest,  at- 
tention, or  love  towards  that  which  they  desire  to  serve. 
God,  with  these  servants  of  His,  has  been  and  is  only  a 
banner,  whilst  in  reality  these  servants  of  His  did  not  seek 


A  Great  Iniquity  27 

communion  with  Him,  did  not  know,  or  desire  to  know 
Him.  So  also  with  many  of  the  servants  of  the  people — 
the  people  are  only  a  banner,  and  they,  far  from  loving 
them,  do  not  seek  communion  with  them  and  do  not  know 
them,  but  in  the  depth  of  their  souls  look  down  upon 
them  with  contempt,  disgust  and  fear. 

fThe  third  feature  is  that  while  they  are  concerned,  the 
former  with  the  service  of  one  and  the  same  God,  the 
latter  with  tiie  service  of  one  and  the  same  people,  they 
not  only  disagree  amongst  themselves  concerning  the 
methods  of  their  service,  but  pronounce  the  activity  of  all 
who  do  not  agree  with  them  as  false  and  pernicious,  and 
demand  its  compulsory  suspension.  Hence,  stakes,  in- 
quisitions, slaughters  in  the  former  case,  and  executions, 
imprisonments,  revolutions  and  manslaughters  in  the 
latter. 

Finally,  the  chief  and  the  most  characteristic  feature 
of  the  one  and  the  other  is  their  complete  indiflerencc, 
their  absolute  ignoring  of  that  which  the  One  they  profess 
to  serve  has  stated  and  is  stating  that  He  desires  and  de- 
mands. God,  whom  they  have  served  and  are  serving  so 
zealously,  has  directly  and  clearly  expressed,  in  that 
which  they  recognize  as  Divine  revelation,  that  it  is 
necessary  to  serve  Him  only  by  loving  one's  neighbor. 
by  acting  towards  others  as  one  desires  others  to  act 
towards  himself.  But  they  did  not  recognize  this  as 
the  means  of  serving  God;  they  demanded  something 
f)uitc  different,  that  which  they  themselves  invented  and 
gave  out  for  the  demands  of  God.  So  likewise  act  the 
servants  of  the  people — they  do  nol  at  all  recognize  that 
which  the  people  desire  and  clearly  ask  for,  and  they 
choose  to  serve  them  through  that  which  the  peo!)l<-  not 


28  A  Great  Iniquity 

only  do  not  ask  of  them,  but  of  which  they  have  not  the 
slightest  idea,  but  which  these  servants  of  the  people  have 
invented  for  them;  and  not  by  that  alone  for  which  the 
people  unceasingly  look,  and  which  they  unceasingly  ask. 

VII. 

Of  all  indispensable  alterations  of  the  forms  of  social 
life  there  is  in  the  life  of  the  world  one  which  is  most 
ripe,  one  without  which  not  a  single  step  forward  in  im- 
provement in  the  life  of  men  can  be  accomplished.  The 
necessity  of  this  alteration  is  obvious  to  every  man  who 
is  free  from  preconceived  theories.  This  alteration  is 
not  the  work  of  Russia  alone,  but  of  the  whole  world. 
All  the  calamities  of  mankind  in  our  time  are  connected 
with  this  condition.  We,  in  Russia,  are  in  the  fortunate 
position  that  the  great  majority  of  our  people  living  by 
agricultural  labor,  does  not  recognize  private  property 
in  land  and  desires  and  demands  the  abolition  of  this  old 
abuse,  and  does  not  cease  to  express  this  desire. 

But  no  one  sees  this,  no  one  wants  to  see  it ! 

Whence  this  dreadful  perversity?  Why  do  kind,  good, 
intelligent  men,  of  which  there  are  many  amongst  the 
Liberals,  Socialists  and  Revolutionists,  not  excluding  even 
Government  officials — why  do  these  men,  desiring  the 
people's  welfare,  not  see  the  one  thing  they  are  in  need  of, 
that  towards  which  they  unceasingly  strive,  and  without 
which  they  ceaselessly  suffer?  Why  are  they  concerned 
instead  with  the  most  various  things  the  realization  of 
which,  without  the  realization  of  that  which  the  people 
desire,  can  in  no  case  contribute  to  their  welfare?  The 
whole  of  the  activity  of  Governmental  as  well  as  of  anti- 


A  Great  Iniquity  29 

Governmental  servants  of  the  people,  resembles  that  of  a 
man  who,  whilst  trying  to  help  a  horse  stuck  in  a  bog, 
sits  in  the  cart  and  transfers  from  one  place  to  another 
the  load  which  is  in  the  cart,  imagining  that  he  can  thus 
help  matters ! 

Why  is  this? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  the  same  as  to  all  ques- 
tions as  to  why  people  of  our  time,  who  might  live  well 
and  happily,  are  living  badly  and  miserably. 

It  comes  from  the  circumstance  that  these  men,  both 
Governmental  and  anti-Governmental,  who  are  organiz- 
ing the  welfare  of  the  people,  have  no  religion — for  with- 
out religion  man  cannot  himself  lead  a  rational  life,  and 
still  less  can  he  know  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad,  what 
is  necessary  and  what  unnecessary,  for  other  people. 
For  this  feason  alone  do  people  of  our  time  in  general, 
and  the  Russian  educated  people  in  particular — altogether 
bereft  of  religious  consciousness  and  openly  announcing 
this  with  pride — so  perversely  misunderstand  life  and  the 
demands  of  the  people  they  wisli  to  serve,  demanding  for 
them  everything  save  the  one  thing  which  they  require. 

Without  religion  one  cannot  really  love  men.  and  with- 
out loving  men  one  cannot  know  what  they  require,  and 
what  is  more,  and  what  is  less,  necessary  for  them.  Only 
those  who  are  not  religious,  and  therefore  do  not  truly 
love,  can  invent  trifling,  unimportant  improvements  in  the 
condition  of  the  people  without  seeing  that  chief  evil  from 
which  others  are  suffering,  and  which  they  themselves  arc 
partly  [)roducing.  Only  such  pco{)le  can  preach  more  or 
less  cleverly-constructed  abstract  theories  supposed  to 
render  the  people  happy  in   the   future,  and   not  see  the 


30  A  Great  Iniquity 

sufferings  the  people  are  bearing  in  the  present  and  which 
demand  immediate  and  practical  alleviation.  As  it  were, 
a  man  who  has  deprived  a  hungry  man  of  his  food  is 
giving  him  his  counsel  (and  that  of  a  very  doubtful  char- 
acter) as  to  how  he  should  get  food  in  the  future,  without 
deeming  it  necessary  immediately  to  share  with  him  that 
part  of  his  own  abundance  consisting  of  the  food  he  has 
actually  taken  away  from  the  man. 

Fortunately,  great  beneficial  movements  in  humanity 
are  accomplished  not  by  parasites  feeding  on  the  life- 
blood  of  the  people,  whatever  they  may  call  themselves — 
Governments,  Revolutionists,  or  Liberals — but  by  relig- 
ious people — that  is,  by  people  who  are  serious,  simple, 
laborious,  and  who  live  not  for  their  own  profit,  vanity, 
or  ambition,  and  not  for  the  attainment  of  external  re- 
sults, but  for  the  fulfillment  before  God  of  their  human 
vocation. 

Such  men,  and  only  such,  by  their  noiseless  but  resolute 
activity,  move  mankind  forward.  Such  men  will  not,  de- 
siring to  distinguish  themselves  in  the  eyes  of  others, 
invent  this  or  that  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the 
people  (there  can  be  an  endless  number  of  such  improve- 
ments, and  they  are  all  insignificant  if  the  chief  thing  is 
not  done),  but  will  endeavor  to  live  in  accordance  with  the 
law  of  God,  with  conscience,  and  in  endeavoring  to  live  so 
they  will  naturally  come  across  the  most  obvious  trans- 
gression of  this  law,  and  for  themselves,  and  for  others 
will  search  for  the  means  of  freeing  themselves  from  it. 

The  other  day  a  doctor  of  my  acquaintance  whilst  wait- 
ing for  a  train  in  the  third-class  waiting-room  of  a  big 
railway  station,  was  reading  a  paper.     A  peasant  sitting 


A  Great  Iniquity  31 

by  him  inquired  about  the  news.  In  the  copy  of  the 
paper  there  was  an  article  about  the  "agrarian"  conven- 
tion. The  doctor  translated  into  Russian  this  funny  word 
"agrarian,"  and  when  it  was  understood  that  the  question 
concerned  the  land,  the  peasant  requested  him  to  read 
the  article.  The  doctor  began  to  read ;  other  peasants 
came  up.  A  small  crowd  collected ;  they  were  pressing 
on  each  other's  backs,  some  sitting  on  the  floor ;  the  faces 
of  all  were  solemnly  concentrated.  When  the  reading 
was  over,  one  of  the  hindmost,  an  old  man,  sighed  deeply 
and  crossed  himself.  This  man,  for  certain,  did  not  un- 
derstand anything  of  the  confused  jargon  in  which  the 
article  was  written,  and  which  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
even  for  those  who  know  how  to  talk  this  jargon  them- 
selves. He  understood  nothing  of  what  was  written  in 
the  article,  but  he  understood  that  the  matter  concerned 
the  great,  the  old  sin  from  which  all  his  ancestors  had 
suffered  and  from  which  he  also  suffers ;  he  understood 
that  those  who  are  committing  this  sin  are  becoming  con- 
scious of  it.  And  having  understood  this,  he  mentally 
turned  to  God  and  crossed  himself.  And  in  this  one 
movement  of  this  man's  hand  there  is  more  meaning  and 
content  than  in  all  the  prattle  which  now  fills  the  columns 
of  the  papers.  This  man  understands,  as  does  the  whole 
of  the  people,  that  the  seizure  of  the  land  by  those  who 
do  not  cultivate  it  is  a  great  sin,  under  which  his  ancestors 
physically  suffered  and  perished,  and  under  which  he  him- 
self and  his  neighbors  also  physically  suffer,  while  all  the 
time  those  who  have  committed  this  sin  and  who  are  now 
committing  it,  spiritually  suffer — and  that  this  sin,  like 
every  sin — like,  in  his  memory,  the  sin  of  serfdom — must 
inevitably  come  to  an  end.     Mc  knows  and  feels  this,  and 


32  A  Great  Iniquity 

therefore  he  cannot  but  turn  to  God  at  the  thought  of  the 
approach  of  the  sokition. 

VIII. 

"Great  social  reforms,"  says  Mazzini,  "always  have 
been  and  will  be  the  result  of  great  religious  movements." 

And  such  is  the  religious  movement  which  is  now  pend- 
ing for  the  Russian  people,  for  all  the  Russian  people,  for 
the  working  classes  deprived  of  land  as  well  as,  and 
especially  for,  the  big,  medium,  and  small  landowners, 
and  for  all  those  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  who,  al- 
though they  do  not  directly  possess  land,  yet  occupy  an 
advantageous  position,  thanks  to  the  compulsory  labor  of 
the  people  who  are  deprived  of  land. 

The  religious  movement  now  due  among  the  Russian 
people  consists  in  undoing  the  great  sin  which  for  a 
long  time  has  been  hurting  and  is  dividing  men,  not  only 
in  Russia,  but  in  all  the  world. 

This  sin  can  be  undone,  not  by  political  reform,  nor 
Socialistic  schemes  for  the  future,  not  by  revolutions  in 
the  present,  and  still  less  by  philanthropic  assistance  or 
governmental  organization  for  the  purchase  and  distri- 
bution of  land  among  the  peasants. 

Such  palliative  measures  only  distract  attention  from 
the  essence  of  the  problem  and  thus  retard  its  solution. 

No  artificial  sacrifices  are  necessary,  no  concern  about 
the  people — there  is  only  necessary  the  consciousness  of 
this  sin  by  all  those  who  commit  or  participate  in  it,  and 
the  desire  of  freeing  themselves  from  it. 

It  is  only  necessary  that  the  undeniable  truth  which  the 


A  Great  Iniquity  33 

best  men  of  the  people  always  knew  and  know — that  the 
land  cannot  be  the  exclusive  property  of  some,  and  that 
the  non-admission  to  the  land  of  those  who  are  in  need  of 
it  is  a  sin — that  this  truth  should  become  generally  recog- 
nized by  all  men ;  that  people  should  become  ashamed  of 
retaining  the  land  from  those  who  want  to  feed  them- 
selves from  it ;  that  it  should  become  a  shame  in  any  way 
to  participate  in  this  retention  of  the  land  from  those  who 
need  it,  a  shame  to  possess  land,  a  shame  to  profit  by  the 
labor  of  men  compelled  to  work  only  because  they  have 
been  deprived  of  their  legitimate  right  to  the  land. 

It  is  necessary  that  there  should  occur  that  which  took 
place  with  the  law  of  serfdom  when  nobles  and  land- 
owners became  ashamed  to  possess  serfs,  the  Government 
became  ashamed  of  maintaining  these  unjust  and  cruel 
laws,  when  it  became  evident  to  the  peasants  themselves 
that  an  utterly  unjustifiable  iniquity  was  being  committed 
upon  them.  The  same  must  take  place  also  with  landed 
property.  And  this  is  necessary,  not  for  any  one  class, 
however  numerous  it  may  be,  but  it  is  necessary  for  all 
classes,  and  not  only  for  all  classes  and  all  men  of  any  one 
country,  but  for  the  whole  of  mankind. 

IX. 

Social  reform  is  not  to  be  secured  by  noise  and  shouting,  by 
complaints  and  denunciation,  by  tlic  formation  of  parties  or  the 
making  of  revolutions  [wrote  Henry  George],  but  by  the  awak- 
ening of  thought  and  the  progress  of  ideas.  Until  there  be 
corr:~t  thought  there  cannot  be  right  action,  and  when  there  is 
correct  thought  right  action  will  follow.     . 

The  great  work  of  the  present  for  every  man  and  every  organ- 
ization of  men  who  would  improve  social  conditions  is  the  work 
of  education,  the  propagation  of  ideas.     It  is  only  as  it  aids  this 


34  A  Great  Iniquity 

that  anything  else  can  avail.  And  in  this  work  every  one  who 
can  think  may  aid,  first  by  forming  clear  ideas  himself,  am' 
then  by  endeavoring  to  arouse  the  thought  of  those  with  whom 
he  comes  in  contact.^^ 

This  is  quite  true ;  but  in  order  to  serve  this  great  cause, 
besides  thought  there  must  also  be  something  more — a 
religious  feeUng — that  feeling  owing  to  which  in  the  last 
century  the  owners  of  serfs  recognized  themselves  culp- 
able, and,  notwithstanding  personal  loss  and  even  ruin, 
sought  the  means  of  freeing  themselves  from  the  sin 
which  weighed  upon  them. 

It  is  this  feeling  in  regard  to  landed  property  which 
must  awaken  in  the  well-to-do  classes  in  order  that  the 
great  work  of  the  liberation  of  the  land  should  be  accom- 
plished ;  this  feeling  should  awaken  in  such  a  degree  that 
people  should  be  ready  to  sacrifice  everything  if  only  they 
can  free  themselves  from  the  sin  in  which  they  have  lived 
and  are  living. 

Possessing  hundreds,  thousands,  scores  of  thousands  of 
acres,  trading  in  land,  profiting  one  way  or  the  other  by 
landed  property,  and  living  luxuriously  thanks  to  the 
oppression  of  the  people,  possible  through  this  cruel  and 
obvious  injustice — to  argue  in  various  committees  and 
assemblies  about  the  improvement  of  the  conditions  of  the 
peasant's  life  without  surrendering  one's  own  exclusively 
advantageous  position  growing  from  this  injustice,  is  not 
only  an  unkind  but  a  detestable  and  evil  thing,  equally 
condemnable  by  common  sense,  honesty  and  Christianity. 
It  is  necessary,  not  to  invent  cunning  devices  for  the  im- 


"  "Social  Problems,"  by  Henry  George  (Kegan  Paul,  Trench, 
Truebner  &  Co.).  pp.  229-230. 


A   Great  Iniquity  35 

provement  of  men  deprived  of  their  lawful  right  to  the 
land,  but  to  understand  one's  own  sin  in  relation  to 
them,  and  before  all  else  to  cease  to  participate  in  it. 
whatever  this  may  cost.  Only  such  moral  activity  of 
every  man  can  and  will  contribute  to  the  solution  of  the 
question  nov/  standing  before  humanity. 

The  emancipation  of  the  serfs  in  Russia  was  effected 
not  by  Alexander  II.,  but  by  those  men  who  understood 
the  sin  of  serfdom  and,  independently  of  their  own  ad- 
vantages, endeavored  to  free  themselves  from  it,  and  it 
was  chiefly  effected  by  such  men  as  NovikofT,  RadischefT, 
the  Decembrists,^-  those  men  who  were  ready  to  suffer 
and  did  themselves  suffer  (without  making  anyone  else 
suffer)  in  the  name  of  loyalty  to  that  which  they  recog- 
nized as  the  truth. 

The  same  must  take  place  in  relation  to  the  land. 

I  believe  that  there  do  now  exist  such  men,  and  that 
they  will  fulfill  that  great  work  not  only  Russian,  but 
universal,  which  is  before  the  Russian  people. 

The  land  question  has  at  the  present  time  reached  such 
a  state  of  ripeness  as  50  years  ago  was  reached  by  the 
(juestion  of  serfdom.  Exactly  the  same  is  being  repeated. 
As  at  that  time  men  searched  for  the  means  of  remedying 
the  general  uneasiness  and  dissatisfaction  which  were  felt 
in  society,  and  applied  all  kinds  of  external  governmental 
means,  but  nothing  helped  nor  could  help  whilst  there  re- 
mained the  ripening  and  unsolved  question  of  personal 
slavery,  so  also  now  no  external  measures  will  help  or 


'2  Russian  Radical  reformers  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  and 
commencement  of  the  nineteenth  centuries,  who  opposed  the 
Government  and   suffered   persecution  at   its   hands.     (Trans.) 


36  A  Great  Iniquity 

can  help  until  the  ripe  question  of  landed  property  be 
solved.  As  now  measures  are  proposed  for  adding  slices 
to  the  peasants'  land,  for  the  purchase  of  land  by  the  aid 
of  banks,  etc.,  so  then  also  palliative  measures  were  pro- 
posed and  enacted,  material  improvements,  rules  about 
three  days'  labor,  and  so  forth.  Even  as  now  the  owners 
of  land  talk  about  the  injustice  of  putting  a  stop  to  their 
criminal  ownership,  so  then  people  talked  about  the  un- 
lawfulness of  depriving  owners  of  their  serfs.  As  then 
the  Church  justified  the  serf  right,  so  now  that  which 
occupies  the  place  of  the  Church — Science — justifies 
landed  property.  Just  as  then  slave  owners,  realizing 
their  sin  more  or  less,  endeavored  in  various  ways  with- 
out undoing  it  to  mitigate  it,  and  substituted  the  payment 
of  a  ransom  by  the  serfs  for  direct  compulsory  work  for 
their  masters  and  moderated  their  exactions  from  the 
peasants,  so  also  now  the  more  sensitive  land  owners, 
feeling  their  guilt,  endeavor  to  redeem  it  by  renting  their 
land  to  the  peasants  on  more  lenient  conditions,  by  selling 
it  through  the  peasant  banks,  by  arranging  schools  for  the 
people,  ridiculous  houses  of  recreation,  magic-lantern  lec- 
tures and  theaters. 

Exactly  the  same  also  is  the  indifferent  attitude  of  the 
government  to  the  question.  And  as  then  the  question 
was  solved,  not  by  those  who  invented  artful  devices  for 
the  alleviation  and  improvement  of  the  condition  of  peas- 
ant life,  but  by  those  who,  recognizing  the  urgent  neces- 
sity of  the  right  solution,  did  not  postpone  it  indefinitely, 
did  not  foresee  special  difficulties  in  it,  but  immediately, 
straight  off,  endeavored  to  arrest  the  evil,  and  did  not 
admit  the  idea  that  there  could  be  conditions  in  which  evil 
once   recognized    must   continue,   but   took   that   course 


A  Great  Iniquity  Z7 

wliich  under  the  existing  conditions  appeared  the  best — 
the  same  now  also  with  the  land  question. 

The  question  will  be  solved,  not  by  those  who  will  en- 
deavor to  mitigate  the  evil  or  to  invent  alleviations  for  the 
people  or  to  postpone  the  task  of  the  future,  but  by  those 
who  will  understand  that,  however  one  may  mitigate  a 
wrong,  it  remains  a  wrong,  and  that  it  is  senseless  to  in- 
vent alleviations  for  a  man  we  are  torturing,  and  that  one 
cannot  postpone  when  people  are  suffering,  but  should 
immediately  take  the  best  way  of  solving  the  difficulty 
and  immediately  apply  it  in  practice.  And  the  more 
should  it  be  so  that  the  method  of  solving  the  land  prob- 
lem has  been  elaborated  by  Henry  George  to  such  a  degree 
of  perfection  that, under  the  existing  State  organisation 
and  compulsory  taxation  ^^  it  is  impossible  to  invent  any 
other  better,  more  just,  practical,  and  peaceful  solution. 

To  beat  down  and  cover  up  the  truth  that  I  have  tried  to-night 
to  make  clear  to  you  [said  Henry  George],  selfishness  will 
call  on  ignorance.  But  it  has  in  it  the  germinative  force  of 
truth,  and  the  times  are  ripe  for  it.  .  .  .  The  ground  is 
plowed;  the  seed  is  set;  the  good  tree  will  grow.  So  little 
now;  only  the  eye  of  faith  can  see  it.** 


*2  In  view  of  a  seeming  contradiction  in  the  eyes  of  some 
readers  of  Tolstoy  between  his  support  of  Henry  George's 
scheme  and  his  simultaneous  denial  of  all  coercive  State  power, 
it  is  important  to  pay  particular  attention  to  these  words  ital- 
icized by  the  author  himself.  Tolstoy  here  emphasizes  a  reser- 
vation, that  he  recommends  Henry  George's  scheme  only  under 
conditions  of  State  organization  and  compulsory  taxation.  It 
goes  without  saying,  that  if  the  Christian  teaching  as  Tolstoy 
understands  it  were  to  be  thoroughly  applied  to  life,  then  there 
would  be  neither  coercive  government  nor  compulsory  taxation, 
and  in  the  distribution  of  the  land  there  would  be  practiced 
amongst  men  a  voluntary  agreement  of  a  yet  freer  and  more 
just  kind  than  the  single  tax  system  of  Henry  George.     (Trans.) 

i*  The  Works  of  Henry  George,  Vol.  X.,  p.  296. 


38  A  Great  Iniquity 

And  I  think  that  Henry  George  is  right,  that  the  re- 
moval of  the  sin  of  landed  property  is  near,  that  the 
movement  called  forth  by  Henry  George  was  the  last 
birth-throe,  and  that  the  birth  is  on  the  point  of  taking 
place;  the  liberation  of  men  from  the  sufferings  they  have 
so  long  borne  must  now  be  realized.  Besides  this,  I 
think  (and  I  would  like  to  contribute  to  this,  in  however 
small  a  measure)  that  the  removal  of  this  great  universal 
sin — a  removal  which  will  form  an  epoch  in  the  history 
of  mankind — is  to  be  effected  precisely  by  the  Russian 
Slavonian  people,  who  are,  by  their  spiritual  and  economic 
character,  predestined  for  this  great  universal  task — that 
the  Russian  people  should  not  become  proletarians  in  imi- 
tation of  the  peoples  of  Europe  and  America,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  that  they  should  solve  the  land  question  at  home 
by  the  abolition  of  landed  property,  and  show  other  na- 
tions the  way  to  a  rational,  free  and  happy  life,  outside  in- 
dustrial, factory,  or  capitalistic  coercion  and  slavery — 
that  in  this  lies  their  great  historical  calling. 

I  would  like  to  think  that  we  Russian  parasites,  reared 
by  and  having  received  leisure  for  mental  work  through 
the  people's  labor,  will  understand  our  sin,  and,  inde- 
pendently of  our  personal  advantage,  in  the  name  of  the 
truth  that  condemns  us,  will  endeavor  to  undo  it. 


\ 


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